FAA Rejects Born-Again Christian Pilots

by Elroy Willis -- February 2, 2016

WASHINGTON DC (EAP)
-- Fear of the Christian Rapture, when Jesus draws his followers up into the air with Him, has caused the FAA to revoke the licenses of all airline pilots who claim to be born-again Christians. The FAA is also preventing any future born-again Christians from acquiring pilot licenses inside US territory and airspace.

"We took a good hard look at the Rapture belief that many Americans and Christian pilots seem to believe in, and decided that we don't want the type of people who believe such an idea behind the controls of any multi-million-dollar aircraft, especially with the lives of so many hundreds of innocent people at stake, both on board, and on the ground below."

"They seem to have no problem with the idea of the airplane they're piloting losing its pilot and crew and the aircraft then plummeting to earth, killing anyone left on board and possibly killing untold numbers of innocent people on the ground," said a spokesperson for the FAA who wishes to remain anonymous until the current case makes it to court.

"It's been a tough few years for us God-fearing, Jesus-praising, Rapture-believing pilots," says one 35-year-old pilot from Nebraska who decided to go into crop dusting instead of giving up his religious belief in the Rapture story.

"The FAA and Eastern Air Pacific (EAP) rejected me, but I can still fly over the corn and wheat fields here in Nebraska, and I serve a valuable purpose by killing the locusts and other bugs that are foretold about in the Bible, so I feel like I'm still doing my part to serve the Lord Jesus," he said.

"I get some flack from some of my fellow rapture-believing neighbors when I start killing the locusts, because they seem to wanna see the locusts completely destroy our crops in order to fulfill some Biblical prophecy, but I just turn the other cheek like Jesus said to do, and ignore such people. I keep on flying my cropduster, knowing that starving to death is much worse than swallowing one's pride or eating some locusts that are eating our crops," he said.

"If I'm raptured while flying, my plane will probably crash into a corn field or a wheat field or maybe a hog farm, but no people will likely be killed by my unmanned plane."

"My cropduster is pretty small," he said.

Feelings are different for other born-again pilots who can't seem to find new jobs and have families to support and bills piling up which they can't manage to pay because of being black-balled by the FAA and airlines like Eastern Air Pacific.

"I lost my job because I was willing to consider letting my plane crash to the ground and not express any bad feelings about it," said Joey Fantimo, 45-year-old pilot for Eastern Air Pacific, who says that it's not his problem or fault that the non-believers on board his flights might end up crashing to earth in a ball of fire due to him being snatched out of the cockpit by Jesus.

"That's what the Bible says and that's what I believe," Fantimo said with regards to sinners burning up in the flames of hell and true believers being snatched up into the sky, rescued by Jesus, mid-flight, out of harm's way, just in the nick of time.

"If Jesus wants to save other people before my plane crashes and burns up, that's up to Him. That includes all the people on my flight as well as all the people my plane might crash into and kill on the ground after I'm raptured," he said.

Spokespeople at EAP airlines say that they can't have that type of attitude on board any of their airliners, be they the attitude of the pilot, co-pilot, or anybody else on the crew.

Eastern Air Pacific began screening potential pilots and staff by asking them religious-related questions during the interview process and on pre-employment application forms.

"We're just trying to be careful so we can protect our future passengers from being killed or blown up during some future flight," they said.

"How many people would actually object to us finding out that some Muslim suicide bombers were trying to get licenses to fly commercial airliners into skyscrapers or other buildings in the name of Allah?" asked one of the spokespeople at EAP.

"If we had such information and precautions, then the September 11, 2001 disaster might not have happened," they said.

"This goes against the freedom of religion," says one unemployed born-again Christian pilot who never made it past the front doors of EAP after he checked the yes box on the application form which asked: "Rapture Believer: Yes/No?"

"I checked `Yes' and that was the end of any hope of working for EAP airlines or any other commercial airline," he said.

"Just because I believe I will be transported out of my cockpit during mid-flight when Jesus comes back to lift me and all of His other chosen people into the air is no reason to disqualify me for a pilot job. I'm a really good pilot," he said.

"We feel differently," said several of the head spokespeople inside the human resource department of EAP airlines.

"The safety of our passengers has always been our number one goal and concern," they say.

"We don't want any of our pilots abandoning ship, or going into some religious trance, or flying any of our aircraft into buildings in some fanatical suicide mission to make it to heaven sooner, so we've taken some positive action and precautions to prevent such things from happening in the future."

"How can you blame us for being careful when so many lives are at stake?" they asked.